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Oct 9, 2005

system center stuff is available...

it's interesting how three different products in the system center suite hit different levels of beta nearly all at once. it's actually pretty cool... unless you're beta testing all of them... got some work cut out for you.
mom 2005 summary reporting pack - release candidate
system center reporting manager 2005 - beta
system center capacity planner 2006 - public beta
summary reporting pack aggregates information that exists in your mom warehouse database and essentially improves performance.
reporting manager 2005 is an integration of sms and mom data into one warehouse. i don't have much experience with this or the reporting pack yet. i'll post more of my findings as i come across them.
i can probably speak to capacity planner 2006 best. i attended the airlift in redmond and saw the product, talked to the product group, and in general had a very good experience over all. this version works for planning mom and exchange deployments. essentially, it comes with lots of performance statistics. you supply the infrastructure and data about your environment or potential environment... the planner tells you if it's going to work. there's a certain bit of fluff you have to accommodate for, obviously. it takes you a long way from having to plan this stuff on paper, basically guessing at the stuff... happy planning.